Thursday, December 15, 2011

Grazers' intrusions?

Mr. A.K. Antony, the Indian Defence Minister stated in the Parliament that "though no infiltration has taken place across the LAC in Arunachal
Pradesh, there have been instances of a few Tibetan herb collectors
inadvertently crossing over into Indian territory in the last two
years." This reminded me of my interview with Kiren Rijiju, then Member of Parliament representing Arunachal Pradesh (West). He did not share the government's and Indian Army's perceptions about Chinese incursions in his border state.I am publishing here an extract of the interview available on Rediff.com:

Question: Is it the army or grazers?

Answer: Grazers are basically a camouflage because the terrain is very difficult. I am speaking of areas from eastern Arunachal (Walong) to the western part (Tawang). The public (and the government) only know of Chinese incursions if it happens in known places like Tawang. When incidents happen in more remote places, it does not come to the notice of the general public. The army keeps it secret. They won't let the people know what actually happened.

In one place in Tawang district, some villagers were in possession of rice and grain supplied by the Chinese authorities. When these Monpa tribals were asked they took Chinese help, they answered: "Well, we have not been supplied with essential commodities from the Indian side. To survive we had no other choice but to accept what the Chinese offered." This shows that the government is not doing enough for the development of the border areas.But the real issue is that India after 1962 adopted a secret policy not to develop the border areas. The idea behind it is that if we develop the border areas, the Chinese can easily use these facilities in the event of a war. It is a wrong policy. It means that we are in a defensive mode, we have no confidence in our army. This encourages the Chinese. We have to be confident in our own policies. Our demand has been that we should connect all the border areas right to the McMahon Line by a road network.

This was three years ago. Has the situation changed? I believe it is changing, but at a slow pace.Regarding the 'perceptional' border (the Line of Actual Control), the Chinese side is probably not very interested to settle the issue.

Question on China in Parliament
PTI
Dec 14,2011

Antony said decisions regarding deployment of radars, Antony said decisions regarding deployment of radars, including mountain radars, are based on various factors like operational requirement of IAF and security needs of the country. Though no infiltration has taken place across the LAC in Arunachal Pradesh, "there have been instances of a few Tibetan herb collectors inadvertently crossing over into Indian territory in the last two years," he said. These Tibetan intruders were apprehended and subsequently deported on completion of formalities as per the existing procedure, he said.
On ways to check infiltration, Antony said, effective border management is carried out through surveillance and regular patrolling by Army and border guarding forces. Replying to a question on encroachment of border areas, the Defence Minister denied any such report and said, "However, there is no commonly delineated Line of Actual Control (LAC) between India and China."
There are few areas where India and China have different perception of the LAC. Due to perceived differences in alignment of the LAC, some cases of transgression by the Chinese patrol beyond Indian perception of LAC do occur, he said.